


Mayday

by nightstiel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Season 9
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-02-06
Packaged: 2018-01-11 10:48:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1172151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightstiel/pseuds/nightstiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean doesn't pray as much anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mayday

Dean doesn't pray as much anymore.

It's funny, really, because he didn't stop when Cas fell and when he couldn't hear Dean's prayers anymore. He kept mumbling words into his pillow before he fell asleep, a quiet one when he was driving his car. It has become something  of a habit since Cas returned from Purgatory and it made him feel at ease, even when he knew that his friend wasn't listening. Couldn't have heard him, and thus it lacked any consequence.

Before that, there was hope. Stupid, foolish hope, like the man who didn't believe in ghosts and you tell him there's one behind him and he turns around, because it's such a human thing to do -- that he'd hear the soft rustle of feathers somewhere on the edge of his hearing, a weight in the room, an angel's true form expanding in flight and shrinking to contain itself in the warm flesh and cold stone walls.

He didn't make this one up. He asked how angels work, or some aspects of it, how they slip through the nooks and crannies of physics, with his back turned to his friend, spine pliant and warm. Cas was tracing patterns on his back, some patterns different that the red lines of his fingernails on Dean's skin. Dean asked because he was curious; and because he wanted to fix Cas and he couldn't. Mechanics were simple and reliable, cars or angels.

“You're angry.” Castiel's fingers come to rest on his shoulder, where the handprint used to be. “Why?”

“I'm not.” He is and they know it. “Not at you.” He shrugs Cas' hand off and tries to wriggle away but Cas simply moves it to Dean's waist, as if he's holding a kite on a delicate string.

Castiel is quiet for a few minutes, breathing evenly against the back of Dean's neck. He doesn't need to but it's a habit that's hard to get rid of, he said.

“I'm not your problem. You don't have to worry about me.”

Dean turns around this time, jaw clenching. “I do. It's who I am.”

“That's what you think.” Cas cradles his head now, a thumb pressed against his cheekbone and Dean closes his eyes as Cas leans in to kiss his temple, his hairline, his forehead, brushing his lips against his furrowed brow.

“You want me to just stop caring, Cas? Yeah, not happening.” Cas is working his way down Dean's nose, until he reaches Dean's lips and he plants a kiss there, light and slow as if kissing an altar.

“No. But I'm not your responsibility. You _should_ be angry with me. Not yourself.”

“I can do both, that fine by you?”

He doesn't wait for an answer as he rolls them over, mouth crushing against Cas' lips with an intention not to let any more word out.

\--

Cas losing his wings is not why he doesn't pray as much anymore.

The night he leaves Cas and Sam on the bridge he's too drunk and too angry. He does it anyway, though he can't remember what he said afterwards. Probably something about how he's a slow-acting poison. Toxic. Radioactive. The other angels knew that, right? He tells Cas to stay the fuck away.

There are 8 missed calls and 11 unread messages on his phone in the morning. He deletes them all without looking.

And well, once the Mark of Cain pulses hot and ugly on his forearm, he stops praying completely. Cas of all people will know what it means. Cas, who told him he was a good man, who told him he was stupid for the right reasons, who held his hand during the whole ordeal with kicking out Gadreel as if he was a little scared boy.

It should terrify him what he signed up for, but he's cold, cold, cold.

\--

He kneels by his bed and dries the bottle, setting it down on his nightstand with a loud noise. He wants to drive to the nearest motel in Lebanon and get someone to fuck his brains out, preferably, but the keys to his car fell out of his hand and he can't find them.

He prays like a little child, all proper, back rigid, hands folded in front of him.

_Cas. Please. Castiel._

It's a prayer stripped down to the bone, no plea, just a name. No request, just  a distress call of a sinking ship, mapping its existence somewhere in the ether before it goes down.

\--

He wakes up to  fingers brushing through his hair giving in to the feeling for a minute before slithering away. His bottle is empty. There should be one in his drawer, but it's not there. He glares at Cas who glares back at him.

“Give it back.”

“I'd have to go back in time and un-flush it in the toilet.”

“Hop on, then.”

“Dean—“ Cas reaches for his wrist but Dean swats his hand away.

“Why are you even here?”

“You asked me to come. I should have come earlier but I was looking for Metatron and Gadreel and you didn't want to talk to me.” Cas keeps staring at him, pinning him to the headboard with his gaze. “You wanted... “ _space_ ”.”

“Damn right I want space. I want it back. “ He stares back, teeth clenched, a fake grin twisting his face. “Sorry you had to make a trip, man. I can blow you for your trouble.”

Cas looks like he's punched him to the stomach-- if he were still human, maybe, because Dean is never punching angeled-up Castiel ever again. Cas is inching closer to him on the bed, reaching for his face again, bringing their foreheads together and Dean leans into it despite himself. Cas should go, Cas should run from him as far as he can. Or maybe he's waiting to be the one to turn off the lights once everyone has left him. Dean doesn't understand why he's come. Why he hasn't stormed out the door yet, or, for that matter, why Dean's not up against a wall again, spitting blood from his lungs and lips.

Cas'  fingers find the scar on his forearm and his fingers tighten around him, too strong, almost crushing the bone, leaving a pale handprint where the force of his grip cut off the blood flow. He sighs and closes his eyes, and then he kisses Dean. He brings his knuckles to his mouth and presses his lips to them too; he kisses the ugly mark and for a second it doesn't burn.

“Dean, _why_?”

“I have to kill Abaddon.” Dean swallows, his hands curling in his lap. “I have to. It's my fault hell is still open, Cas.” He folds, then, falls into Cas, his head buried between his friend's neck and collarbone. He's not wearing his trenchoat, he notices, just a plain white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Top three buttons are open, and Dean smiles to himself that Cas remembered his dating advice.

“It doesn't matter. Sam doesn't want me anymore. Killing Abaddon. Killing. That's all I'm good for.”

Cas is trembling. Or he is, or they both are, Dean can't tell anymore. Cas smells like an old, foreign car and dry cleaners and he stinks, probably, the alcohol oozing from his pores. He feels dirty like an old rag and he looks it, too.

The bottle on the nightstand shatters and so does the lightbulb. Dean leans back to look into Cas' stricken face. “Whoa.” He swallows thickly. “Wanna take it out on me? Knock yourself out. I don't care.”

Instead, Cas cups his face again, cradles it gently between his fingers and it's the gentleness of this touch that Dean didn't expect. "You think so little of yourself when you do nothing but good." He kisses him. “You're more than the sum of your sacrifices, Dean. You give so much of yourself to other people there is none left for yourself.” Dean wants to run, but Cas is holding him still and his body isn't listening to him. “You're worth so much more than that.”

'“I'm not, Cas, I'm not. Sam's right. I only do it because I'm afraid to be alone.”

“It's  alright. I'll be with you when I can. I _am_ with you when I can, but I will try harder. I'm sorry.” He pulls Dean closer, his mouth close to his ear and Dean gives in, wraps his arms around Cas' frame, tight and strong. He'd break a person's ribs this way; but this is Cas and Cas is like a hurricane inside a bottle and he can handle this. “I'll stay with you, Dean." He smoothes a hand down Dean's back, counting the bumps on his spine. "I thought you didn't need it because you didn't ask.”

“I never would.”

“I know. I know now. It's a human thing, I realise it now.”

“Then you also know I'm crap.”

“I held your soul in my hands. It was the brightest I've ever seen.”

Dean's eyes are prickling and he feels his face run wet and hot. Cas says nothing; kisses his closed eyes, and murmurs something in Enochian, something primal and Dean doesn't even need to ask him what it means; it seeps through his skin, through his bones, like sigils etched into his ribs. _Beloved_ , Cas murmurs under his breath anyway.

“I know you don't believe me. Maybe I'll make you, one day.” Cas smiles, their foreheads pressing together again. The world outside them is static to Dean, flaying at his nerves and soul. But Cas is _here_. After all the shit, after everything he knows about Dean, he's _here_ and he doesn't seem to be going away.

“What are you, inquisition?”

“My motives are far more pure and my methods more humane, I think. Although that hasn't always been true.”

Dean presses his lips to his collarbone, a soft murmur and a scrape of teeth as he reaches for the other buttons, popping them open. He wants Cas to hold him and it's the only way he knows how to ask. And Castiel does, plucking him apart fiber by fiber, his eyes never leaving Dean's as he moves inside of him and Dean feels himself go boneless. He can keep his eyes open; this grace is not a tenth of what Cas has used to be and Cas' eyes only flare blue under his eyelids when he kisses Dean's mouth with a soft sigh.

“I'd like to stay the night,” Cas asks, his hand in Dean's hair.

“Yeah, okay. As long as you like.”

“That would be a very long time.” Cas' smile is a little sad, Dean thinks. There's always something. A demon to kill. A world to save.

“I wish I could make up for your sacrifices. For every single one. But I can't. I can't fix you. I can't fix you and Sam.” They are curled up underneath the thin blanket, like parentheses facing each other. “Although I can love you, Dean. I will keep doing that.”

It freezes the blood in Dean's veins. He _knows_ this, maybe, because it's the only explanation that would make sense. But hearing it goes against everything he thinks about himself.  “Cas, you can't just say that.”

“It's a free country, Dean. Am I also not allowed to say that this... “ _peach fuzz_ ” looks very good on you?”

“I'm not keeping it for you.”

“But you _are_ keeping it.”

Sleep comes difficult, still, until Cas presses two fingers to his forehead. He's there when he wakes up. He doesn't go.

Maybe he's drowning a little slower.


End file.
